GPAs (all weighted) PSA My school weighs weird i dont know why! :
Freshman year GPA - 3.95
Sophomore year GPA- 4.22
Junior Year GPA - 5.29
Senior - TBD
cumulative (so far)- 4.5 / 3.6
I got straight A’s my junior year and took AP psych, AP enviro, Pre IB AP medical interventions, H spanish 4, H english, H gov/econ, H adv dance (it’s a thing at my school lol), and CP Algebra 2 (it’s really hard to move up math levels at my school)
Next year I’m taking 2 APs again AP Bio and AP Lit and the rest honors except for physics and math
My test scores aren’t great → 27 on the ACT (28 Super score)
ECs: President of the feminist club, VP of outreach (we teach under privileged kids student made health lesson plans), HOSA/HEAL, spanish national honor society, dance national honor society, english national honor society, regular national honors society, I’m going to have a job this summer, I won the award for US Gov H and Spanish 4 H because of my performance in both of these classes, positive spirit award and choreography showcase winner in dance, dance club, freshman helpers club (shows freshman around when they come to high school), high holiday choir, I played 2 JV sports for 2 years but stopped my junior year because of workload, senior mentor, I feed the elderly on thanksgiving, I studied abroad this summer in Israel for 6 weeks, and I worked on a lot of biomedical projects throughout the years.
I know I am going to have good REC letters because my teachers told me they would write me good REC letters and I just fyi if it helps I plan on going Pre- med and major in nutrition (school of agriculture and life sciences). Also, I am a pretty good writer so my essay should be good.
I don’t know too much about UW Madison, but I doubt they give out full ride scholarships frequently. To get a better chance you would probably need to retake the ACT or take the SAT and get a 32/1400+. Otherwise I think the rest of your stats r ok, but getting a full ride at any school is pretty difficult so I would say your chances rn are very small.
Do you need a full ride because your Expected Family Contribution, by the financial aid formulas, is really zero?
Or do you have a higher EFC that you and your family can’t actually pay, and need merit aid?
UW doesn’t do full ride merit awards and, if you are out of state, its financial aid to out of state students is primarily loans. UW has started increasing availability of its merit awards, but as best I know, they are not full tuition, let alone full ride (all expenses, including room and board).
Talk to your parents about what they will contribute to your college education each year, and run the Net Price Calculator at UW to see if it is affordable.
Also, UW uses unweighted grades, not weighted, so re-calculate your gpa to see what it is unweighted. Are you planning on prepping and re-taking the ACT? For an instate student, a 28 is on the borderline for admission, could go either way and will almost certainly be postponed to March for the admissions decision. For an out of state student, it is almost certainly a rejection.
If you are out of state for UW, other schools to consider would include Minnesota Twin Cities, Iowa, and Indiana or Purdue.
Are you asking about merit-based scholarships, that are awarded to the highest achieving students at some schools? Or are you asking about financial aid, which is based on family finances? If merit – there are not many merit awards and they are for in state students mostly. If you are talking about financial aid, then run the Net Price Calculator on the UW website. For an out of state student at UW, financial aid will be largely loans, and your parents would have to co-sign.
UW also does not superscore tests. Do NOT count on even just tuition and fees merit money. Not even all instate National Merit finalists who choose UW will get a full ride, if any do.
You need to concern yourself with getting accepted to UW and financing it. Time for that parent talk about how things can be paid for.
You and thousands of other HS students have the same passion for UW. Your record looks possible for acceptance but no guarantees. Try to up your ACT score.
@Midwestmomofboys UW-Madison does award full ride merit awards—I am a recipient of such an award.
With all due respect to OP, there are a lot of students with much better resumes than you who barely get any merit money. My test scores, GPA, and course rigor were much better than yours, I was also heavily involved in a variety of activities during high school, AND I was an in-state student. I worked my butt off in academic and non-academic pursuits, and I was still initially placed on a wait-list for the full ride before it was offered to me. It’s very humbling to realize how many exceptional students attend this school, and I still count my lucky stars over how the person who they initially offered the scholarship to turned it down. It’s hard for IS students to receive merit money, and even harder for OOS students.
To be honest, if you’re OOS, I’m not sure if you are even guaranteed acceptance with your stats, let alone a full ride. It sounds like you have an upward trend in grades though, which is good.
@purplepenguin333 ~ Check out the UW-Madison RD and waitlist threads to view the stats of others who are being admitted, denied, and waitlisted. As others have said, if you’re out-of-state, it’s unlikely you’ll get in; there are multiple applicants with amazing stats who’ve been waitlisted.
@silmaril Thank you for correcting me on the full merit award – if it’s okay to ask, is that Chancellor’s? Or something else?
I agree, there are truly astounding students at UW, and the opportunities are amazing. My kid will always be grateful for the opportunities he had at UW.